What's Inside You?

Then Jesus said:
What comes from your heart is what makes you unclean. Out of your heart come evil thoughts, vulgar deeds, stealing, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, greed, meanness, deceit, indecency, envy, insults, pride, and foolishness. All of these come from your heart, and they are what make you unfit to worship God.
Mark 7:20-23 CEV

How many times have you seen recently where someone famous says something stupid, then denies it, then an audio or a video of their comment surfaces and the spin machine starts? Excuses range from “I didn’t mean it”,” I was frustrated”,” I was having a bad day” to even “it was my ex-wife’s fault.”

Isn’t it great that something spoken 2000 years ago can give us the answer to a common dilemma today? Jesus knew where the rage and anger and other vile things lie in us. In our hearts. If someone is caught on tape yelling racist remarks we know it’s coming from the inside and pouring out at a weak moment.

What would happen if “Big Brother” had cameras in our homes and we watched them with a stranger at a later date? Would it be “G” rated or “PG-13” or even “R” rated. When you get mad at your spouse or your kids what kind of words are flying?

The beauty of this verse is it doesn’t just deal with anger issues. It addresses other “unclean” items that may be in our heart and we may not even know it. I haven’t thought of murdering anyone lately, but what about pride? We live in a culture that feeds pride. We’re to be proud of everything from our skin color to our sexual orientation. Jesus calls it sin and the reason I love this translation is He says we’re not even fit to worship God if this is on the inside.

How about meanness and foolishness? Not two things we probably think about too often when it comes to our sins. In fact, being a guy, I thought foolishness goes with the territory or was a spiritual gift. It seems I do dumb things all the time, just ask my wife. But kidding aside, foolishness is address heavily in the Proverbs and it kinds of runs counter to the wisdom that God wants to give us.

The point of this list is they are all things we can’t see when we walk up and greet someone whether it’s your best friend or a stranger. These things are either cultivated or exterminated based on what we put into our minds. The process looks like this: what goes in is what comes out. It’s a lot like our diet and exercise.

This is all to say we need to be fed daily with things of God and less of things of this world. We need to be versed more and more in the word of God so we can draw upon His ways when we get into a crunch or a weak moment. We need to surround ourselves with people that will build us up and hold us accountable to whether we need a “roto-rooter” on the inside.

Meditate on this list above and ask God if any item in this list is creeping into your heart. Tell a friend about it, pray and ask God to help you remove it and deal with it. Those around you will notice the results.